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Sunday, September 23, 2018

The escape from tribalism

This is the first of two volumes about the history
of the state, written by Francis Fukuyama. So far, I've only read the first
volume, “The Origins of Political Order”. It begins in murky prehistory and
ends with the French Revolution. The second book is titled “Political Order
and Political Decay” and deals with the 19th and 20th centuries.

Despite its monumental sweep, Fukuyama's book is surprisingly easy to read.
It attempts to answer the question why Western Europe and Western-derived
societies in other parts of the world are unique in terms of modernization,
democracy, the rule of law and overall social stability. While Fukuyama
denies holding a near-deterministic position in which societies are trapped
in their present state due to events that took place centuries or millennia
ago, I think it's obvious that he *does* hold such a position. Thus, the
roots of Western, more specifically Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian, success
goes back all the way to the fall of the Roman Empire and the social changes
during the Early Middle Ages. In the same way, Russia, the Muslim world,
India and China follow trajectories heavily shaped by ancient successes and
failures.

That being said, Fukuyama does not have a “teleological” view of history,
where Western modernity (or the Whig Party platform) is somehow inevitable.
Nor does he believe that Western modernity and democracy are inevitable in
the rest of the world as a kind of preordained endpoint of The Historical
Process as a whole. Rather, Fukuyama sees human societies as products of
uneven and contradictory processes. While human social change isn’t “blind”,
it often has unintended consequences. Thus, the attempts by the Catholic
Church during the Early Middle Ages to strengthen its power base against the
Germanic monarchs unintentionally dissolved tribalism and laid the long term
basis for modern Western society, which is unique in world history due to its
non-tribal character. While not identical, Fukuyama's perspective does seem
to have certain similarities with Stephen Jay Gould's view of biological
evolution (he mentions Gould in his book). Shorter periods of decisive but
often contingent change are followed by much longer periods of relative
stasis, and adaptive evolution often gives rise to “spandrels”, non-adaptive
structures which are byproducts of the adaptive ones, but often plays an
important role anyway. If I read Fukuyama correctly, the West is the eventual
outcome of historical changes that could have been different. Perhaps we
simply were lucky!

Fukuyama sees tribalism or “patrimonialism” as the natural state of
humankind, rooted in our biological evolution as a species. Originally,
humanity was organized around patriarchal clans where almost everyone was
genetically related. Later, the patriclan gave rise to the tribe, which is
much broader in composition and hence more based on reciprocal altruism than
on kinship, although kinship still plays an important role on sub-tribal
level, where families attempt to promote their own special interests. The
tribe can be seen as a form of extended or “fictional” kinship system. War is
another constant of human existence. From this follows that any political
order will tend to be based on kinship, extended kinship in the form of
tribalism, and territorial aggression. Political systems *not* based on
tribalism will tend to devolve in a tribalist direction if given half a
chance. Only Western civilization has successfully managed to escape from
tribalism due to various unique historical circumstances. However, other
societies have tried to accomplish the same thing through different routes
than the Western one. Thus, China's history has revolved around the constant
conflict between a strong state based on meritocracy and equally strong
familial lineages promoting their own special interests. Some Muslim
societies, most notoriously the Mamluks and the Ottomans, tried to escape
from tribalism by a peculiar system of slave-soldiers and slave-officials,
who stood outside the kinship system altogether and were therefore “neutral”
(and loyal to the sultan and his state foremost). In Western Europe, as
already noted, the dissolution of tribalism was an unintended consequence of
the Catholic Church's attempt to gain control over land and other property,
while simultaneously strengthening its own political power. Among other
things, the Church prohibited marriage between close kin and levirate marriage,
while recognizing female property rights. For these and related reasons, it
became difficult to keep property within the patriclan, eroding its material
base. While noble families of course played important roles in European
history, they were no longer part of real clans or tribes. Very often, feudal
loyalty ties were between non-kin. Kinship ties also weakened among the
peasants, who gradually evolved into freeholders based on private property.

Other important changes also took place in Western Europe. Fukuyama argues
that the rule of law and democratic accountability evolved already before a
strong state, whereas in China the state emerged first and never permitted
the two former from evolving in the same decisive way as in Europe. Once
again, the Church played an important role by systematizing canon law and the
Roman law. The investiture conflict between the Church and the secular rulers
also created the preconditions for modernity, since the conflict ended with a
compromise, in effect creating a “secular” sphere outside the direct control
of the religious authorities. Another important factor was the role played by
kings who supported the commoners against the nobility, thereby in the long
run (and perhaps despite their own intentions) strengthening the former.
Thus, in medieval England, the local courts played a curious dual role as
both the king's agents and representatives of the local population. When the
strong state emerged during the Early Modern Period, it had to contend with
powerful traditions of legality and accountability, and also with free
burghers and peasants. After prolonged conflict, this created a balance in
society not found in, say, Russia where the rise of the absolutist state was
accompanied by the destruction of republican forms and the enserfment of the
peasantry.

In contrast to Marx, Fukuyama believes that politics and religion are
independent variables which shape the course of history. The centrality of
religion comes from Max Weber, although the details differ. Overall, I must
say that “The Origins of Political Order” is pretty heterodox, the author
constantly attacking received wisdom from Marx, Hayek, Huntington,
modernization theory and yes, even Herr Weber! Often, he is right. For
instance, Fukuyama points out that despite the lack of real rule of law and
democratic accountability, China and similar authoritarian regimes might
become very successful anyway, if the regimes feel that something resembling
“rule of law” is in their best pragmatic interest. Nothing stops the Communist
Party from grabbing private property such as American companies or their
profits, but it's not done since it's bad for business. This sounds trivial,
but it goes against the received wisdom of both liberals, libertarians and
Neo-Cons (and perhaps Fukuyama himself in an earlier incarnation) that
everyone will become more modern in the Western sense (perhaps with some
prodding from American bombs or Open Society Foundation handouts) and that
only such societies can possibly be successful, generate economic growth,
etc.

Personally, I consider “The Origins of Political Order” extremely
interesting. My main objection is the socio-biological perspective. Contrary
to what the author imagines, matriarchal societies (using that term broadly)
has existed, and so has peaceful societies, including at least three peaceful
high cultures. The author (unfortunately) isn't “wrong” when pointing to
patriarchal clans and warlords as important movers and shakers in world
history, but as a truly universal theory, his book nevertheless falls short.
But then, perhaps there isn't a universal theory in the first place?
Contingent evolution, anyone? The fact that there are two species of
chimpanzees with diametrically opposed behavior patterns, both equally close
to man genetically speaking, should perhaps be enough to problematize any
dependence on orthodox socio-biology. That being said, what the author
asserts about tribalism is obviously correct: the matriclans were, of course,
also “tribal”, and so are peaceful societies. The Indus Valley Civilization
didn't see itself as bent on a universal mission to save mankind, after all.
The tension between genetic solidarity and reciprocal altruism is a constant
in human history. Humans can form non-kinship groups, including groups based
on a world religion or political ideology, but they often turn into
quasi-clans and get genetically perpetuated in the second and third
generation by members marrying and having children. In this perspective, the
West does look unique. For how long, remains to be seen. Fukuyama ends his
book on a cautionary note by mentioning the deadlock and polarization in
American politics (the volume was published in 2011) and points out that when
democracy fails, authoritarianism and a very different kind of political
order inevitably becomes more appealing…